chronicle-assistant-guidelisted

# Chronicle Assistant Guide > **Purpose**: Universal directives for AI assistants using Chronicle > **Scope**: Works across ALL projects (with MCP server OR CLI-only) > **Priority**: Load this FIRST when Chronicle is available --- ## Auto-Activation > **This skill auto-activates!** (Milestone #13) > > Prompts like "how do I use chronicle?" automatically trigger this skill. Lower priority than other skills. > > **Trigger patterns:** how to use chronicle, chronicle help, chronicle guide > **See:** `docs/HOOKS.md` for full details --- ## ⚡ CRITICAL: Pre-Flight Checklist **Before starting ANY Chronicle-related task, run through this checklist:** 1. ✅ **SEARCH FIRST**: Search Chronicle's history - **With MCP**: `mcp__chronicle__search_sessions(query="relevant keywords", limit=5)` - **Without MCP**: `chronicle search "relevant keywords" --limit 5` - Has this been done before? - What context exists about this feature/issue? - What approaches failed or succeeded? 2. ✅ **Check Skills**: Is there a Chronicle skill for this task? - `chronicle-workflow` - Session workflow guidance - `chronicle-session-documenter` - Document to Obsidian - `chronicle-context-retriever` - Search past work - `chronicle-project-tracker` - Roadmap and milestones 3. ✅ **Prefer MCP over CLI**: Use best available tool - **MCP available?** → Fast (<10ms), structured JSON, no subprocess overhead - **CLI only?** → Still works, slightly slower (~100ms), parse formatted outpu